Neverwinter Year in Review: January , February and March

To start off 2017 we’d like to look back at the last year in Neverwinter. What were the highs, the lows, the disappointments and the laughs? Join us in our journey through the months using our very own postings, starting with January, February and March today. The other quarters can be found here: April-JuneJuly-September and October-December.

January

Twilight TorA new year naturally means that the Winter Festival comes to an end. In 2016 Twilight Tor once again was a superb host, but the event started with a Starlight Parcel exploit. Additionally Cryptic’s handling of the situation left a lot to be desired. During the month the devs tweaked the queue system, severly reduced the cost of transmutation and fixed one of the more annoying bugs with the Cowardice Underdark Ring. Speaking of Underdark we primed Xbox for the release in February while PC already was running Alpha tests for the upcoming Maze Engine. Not everything went smoothly with the test server however. As new lockbox New Life got introduced and producer Terramak sat down for a developler Q&A stream on the PWE twitch channel.

February

The second month of 2016 started with the official announcement of Maze Engine as Neverwinter’s next module. Several devs gathered on the official Neverwinter PWE subreddit and answered some questions regarding the expansion. Unfortunately in that very same AMA the announcement that they would not update the foundry in 2016 led to a major disappointment in the community.

Trade Bar Store Banner

But this wasn’t nearly as much noise than the Trade Bar Store update would create a few days later. With Underdark’s Xbox launch the devs quietly removed Wards from the store. Not only did they not communicate this change in advance, the original blog post even featured price reduction for the items. Obviously players had stockpiled Trade Bars anticipating the change, only to find the Wards completely removed. Later that month PWE also announced that change for the PC version. This whole mess was truly one of the low points of 2016. Oh and if that’s not enough, there were some unjustified bans yet again, inspiring us to write a song.

Fortunately with the Maze Engine there also came some good news. Campaign were set to receive a major overhaul and everybody liked the new advanced queue system.

March

The botting scene beat Cryptic in releasing a gear switcher and Rob Overmeyer did his infamous State of the Game. He desperately tried to cover up how much they had screwed up in several areas of the game, and failed. During the month the first hints at Portobello surfaced and we were wrong with our claim that the Beholder Tank would be a ZEN store addition.

With the Maze Engine set to be released on the 15th, our coverage continued. The actual launch went rather quiet, but it quickly became clear that the module would not present a new layer of PVE difficulty. Only three days into the expansion the first Castle Never solo runs were recorded. Also the initial addition of a true paid enchantment was controversial.


That’s our review for the first quarter of 2016! The second quarter can be found here. In case you want to add something or have a general comment, share it below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 35,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and contact us on our message board or email! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

NWO_Unblogged

We are always looking for people that contribute to this blog. For more information contact us via blog@nwo-uncensored.com or check the forum.